Capitalism is killing the planet – it’s time to stop buying into our destruction

I remember a story on HN about how it was the plastic industry that promoted the narrative of recyclable plastic. Doesn’t make sense at first glance, perhaps; why not sell more plastic instead of telling people to recycle it? But they promoted that narrative because it is inefficient/hard to recycle plastics, and thus there is apparently no “sustainable” way to keep using plastics.

It was a useful tale to spin past a certain point of environmental consciousness.

So that narrative—engineered by the plastic industry itself—became just another part of RRR (reuse, repurpose, recycle).

Now think about all the billions of dollars that are in marketing. How much of the popular eco-agenda could be corporoate-sponsored?

(This is just to suggest that it is possible—there are always at least a dozen people in the comments who will demand direct proof in the form of leaked memos from at least three different giant corporations were they directly and explicitly (no innuendo) tell their subordinates to come up with such agendas, signed off by at least three executives. But it might be something to consider.

Or not.)

Now the Zeitgeist tells us that the world will be saved by middle class Joe making better consumer choices. I.e. rock the person, not the system.

The same thing goes for the economic system writ large.

`Instead of focusing on ‘micro consumerist bollocks’ like ditching our plastic coffee cups, we must challenge the pursuit of wealth and level down, not up`

The mask is so close to being completely off with these malthusian social movements.

I gradually went freegan. Every dollar I do not spend is one less item pulled off the shelf, one less item restocked from the case, one fewer cases pulled off the pallet, one less pallet delivered from the warehouse, one less order placed to the factory... A little bit less diesel burned by all the trucks and ships delivering it... A little bit less of my biome stripped for the resources.

I live somewhere with an over-abundance of items and food and shelter, so why not reduce my complicity to the processes I don't like, while also reducing the work required for my upkeep?

(Freegan means avoiding the use of currency, instead relying on barter, gift economy, gifts from above, unsubscribing, etc.)

He says a wealth tax will be more effective than a carbon tax at stopping climate change. What planet is he living on? Is reducing the wealth of billionaires supposed to stop Big Plastic from lobbying?

He mentions Bill Gates' personal carbon output without mentioning his investments in nuclear power research and other initiatives?

Also does anyone really think that if North Korea were more prosperous, they would be polluting less than capitalist countries? The problem isn't inherent and unique to capitalism, the problem is reckless selfishness and disregard for externalities that can emerge from cronyism (lobbying under a capitalist system), but also from nationalism and corruption which are not unique to capitalist systems. A system that is socialist internally but with high levels of nationalism will be prone to pollute because they don't care about the global commons.

> Capitalism is killing the planet

Humans are killing the planet. Every single political or economical system tried over last 100 thousands of years, resulted k in humans destroying environment for short-term benefits.

Hunter-gatherers destroyed most of megafauna. Ancient Greeks destroyed forests of Greece. Medieval Germans destroyed forests of Germany. French and English did it too. Aurochs were destroyed in modernity. Soviets destroyed Aral Sea.

This isn't even limited to our species - algae almost destroyed life on Earth, because they found that funny photosynthetic pathway and started emitting O2 to atmosphere.

The very problem is that humans are form of life and restraining ourselves or worsening quality of life "for next generation" goes against basic instincts and behaviours built by evolution in mammals.

Did anyone else bet that this is written by George Monbiot just from reading the title?

“I bet with no freedom of press we will stop cutting trees for newspapers, books etc.” This is how The Guardian sounds.

This is my argument against cryptocurrency - it's capitalism taken to the extreme and we're already struggling to mitigate the downsides of capitalism.

Don't get me wrong, capitalism is a great thing and has brought us to where we are today but it has downsides. In the 21st century a government's primary purpose is simply to mitigate those downsides. However, governments are increasingly losing this power struggle. Democracy is being manipulated by capitalist-driven propaganda machines. And now, with the rise of cryptocurrencies, we're mitigating governments of their ability to control money too.

If you read that last sentence and thought that that's a good thing then maybe you've fallen prey to those propaganda machines. Government's provide citizens with everything from healthcare, roads and infrastructure, education, welfare and much more. Inflation is high at the moment because government's bailed out their most vulnerable citizens with massive welfare payments. Stripping government's of such abilities is societal suicide.

It's no coincidence that the country that is most money-hungry and capitalistic is also the worst at providing these things (relatively).

For when the measure of a man is the depth of his pockets, then the world shall be ran by clowns.

> The ocean current that brings heat from the tropics is weakening. Without it, the UK would have a climate like Siberia’s

This part's actually not quite right, there was a Science paper a few months ago that simulated various events and proposed that it's more likely that the ocean itself only contributes a few degrees to the temperatures, and that it's the atmosphere movements that cause the bulk of actual heating.

Still it's impossible to say what the gulf stream's dissipation will lead to and the results could still be rather catastrophic, but that statement is pretty far off reality. Some estimate that ironically, its shutdown may help with the reduction of heat waves in the summer, and Europe is a lot more infrastructurally prepared for extreme cold than extreme heat.

Aside from that, it's good to see that the unsaid thing is being said out loud more and more in recent months. I have serious doubts anything can be done in this regard though, capitalism or not. All major economic/political systems seem to hinge on an ever growing economy and as such cannot go on perpetually in a closed system. The "economic growth at all costs" mindset is so ingrained in our society that there's no stopping it at this point, even if it means our extinction.

Capitalism is such an overused term. I like to say I prefer a system where prices are fully reflective of realities (health and safety, pollution, working conditions), and people can more or less transact as they please. This still leaves a lot of room for debate of course.

But my gripe with the current world is more that things don't cost what they cost, rather than people being too free to deal. My guess is that a lot of people actually feel the same way, regardless of whether they identify as a leftie or a rightie.

One thing about the world as it is now is that you see nearly nothing of how the sausage is made. We know what we're consuming, but it's rare to understand how it go to your house. Were pesticides used to grow your food? Did the cow suffer when it was slaughtered? Did the guy who drove your stuff across the country have to shit in a bag? What about the white collar guy who flies around to meetings all the time, does he see his kids during the week? The sports star who makes millions, does he suffer from relentless pressure?

Some of the most rewarding experiences involve relationships with other people. We have this transactional economy where you walk into a shop and someone gives you food and you leave, but one of my favourite things to do is actually talking to shopkeeper. How is business, how does it work, what are your thoughts on things? I'm friends with a number of people whose shops I wandered into and have since kept in touch with. That could be called capitalism too, but we tend to associate the term with an uncaring sort of brutal dystopia if we're a leftie, or a kind of necessary evil if we're a rightie. YMMV of course, as I mentioned the term means a lot of things to a lot of people.

"Cars are killing millions of people. It's time to stop driving towards death." type of things to say.

"In reality, the biggest source of water pollution is farming, followed by sewage" That's from the article. I do not see how the proposed wealth redistribution would make people eat and shit less. Accept it - we are just tooooo many. Rich are not the problem. Poor are, cause there are more of them and they breed faster.

Anyone who does serious research in STEM knows that articles from Scientific Reports [1] are to be taken with a pinch (or even a lump) of salt. And yet, here we have a so-called environmental-science reporter using such an article to make doomsday predictions:

> People who study complex systems have discovered that they behave in consistent ways. It doesn’t matter whether the system is a banking network, a nation state, a rainforest or an Antarctic ice shelf; its behaviour follows certain mathematical rules.

This has as much scientific content as Ian Malcolm's prediction (using "chaos" theory) about the collapse of Jurassic Park. So much nonsense has been written about the complexity of natural systems and the collapse of the environment that it's very hard to take any article that starts with such claims seriously. And saying things like "it follows certain mathematical rules" as if that gives your claims some sort of credibility is just one of the many examples of the misuse of mathematics [2] in the "softer" sciences.

The real reason for the majority of environmental problems is overpopulation, not capitalism. Capitalism and globalization has had an important role in bringing people out of poverty, especially in large countries like India and China. If you think this is not true, look at the poverty levels of India before economic liberalization. Less poverty means more education and better family management. Much of this is obvious to anyone who has had an objective look at capitalism, but not to the Guardianistas who come up with such low-effort pseudo-scientific tripe.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Reports

[2]: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.70...

Having travelled it seems the places without capitalism have the most environmental destruction

It is a shame that there is a law of economic nature which states that all billionaires must be dead-eyed psychopaths. Imagine if Rupert Murdoch or Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg really wanted to do good. Any one of them could choose to buy up all the media in the USA and pump out 'good' propaganda, aimed squarely removing its utterly corrupt ruling class, and they might succeed. Instead the existing media/political ecosystem is supported and reinforced by the only people who have the resources to change it.

(Yes, yes, I believe in democracy and everything but it's too late for all that now).

> the shift of power away from the democratic sphere

The "democratic sphere" is where anti-vaxxers and climate deniers roam. It seems doubtful democracy will help with a solution. Other systems are worse, of course. Hence, no solution.

I've heard that around 130k people are delivered from poverty each day lately. That's due to markets and such, not the good intentions of people like Pol Pot.

There is some argument to be made along these lines, but it involves changing human beings themselves, e.g. through something like meditation. These kinds of articles never have and never will mention such things that might actually effect the changes they seem to want to make in the world but are unable or unwilling to make in themselves.

Think of how much progress could be made if a typical HN reader changed their lifestyle to be only an average polluter instead of the top 1%

Why is plastic vilified. Surely compared to fuel, it is an excellent, justified use for hydrocarbons. And as for disposal, isn’t it a simple matter of not doing ridiculous stuff like dumping it into rivers or oceans.

The headline itself, let alone the content is so stupid it drools (well, I suspect people do not take the Guardian seriously in any case). Similar headline from Guardian about '..Oil CEOs lied ...' etc. The framing of the issues, the utter lack of contextual and theoretical framework ... just not respectable. One would have to unravel this garbage at the expense of lot of energy to even begin aspiring for useful and practical discourse on such topic.